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By Ooi Kee Beng, for The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 1, 2025 – December 7, 2025 For centuries, the Pearl River delta had been the trading hub for anyone wishing to trade with the Chinese Empire. When one considers the dynamics of China’s political economy over the last millennia, this makes a lot of … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG, for The Edge Malaysia Weekly. September 22-28, 2025 The passing of the Gig Workers’ Bill 2025 by the Malaysian parliament is significant, encouraging and inspiring. For a country whose political culture pathologically encourages racial consciousness, confrontation and intimidation, this legislation is a rare acknowledgement of society’s struggling classes — and gig … Continue reading
Keynote speech given at Canon Malaysia’s “Think Big” Conference on 9 September 2025 at Holiday Inn, Bukit Mertajam. PENANG INSTITUTE PROVIDED much of the thinking, the research and the ground support in the creation and socializing of the Penang2030 vision and masterplan, along with Think City and the Chief Minister’s Office. We decided to publicize … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG, speech at Ayer’s House, given as part of the Adelaide’s History Festival, on 12 May 2025 SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS are very complex matters. I come from a family with four brothers, and two half-brothers and a half-sister. And I have three children from two marriages. Much insights—and moments of exasperation—have been gained … Continue reading
By Dr OOI KEE BENG My being here today, in Adelaide, South Australia, is still a great surprise to me. This is because there are certain geographical journeys in one’s step-by-step trip through life that one does not envisage for a variety of reasons. Australia was never on my to-see and to-do list. I lived … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng A shorter version published on 13 April 2025 by South China Morning Post as “Decoding Trump’ s tariffs and the world’s multipolar future” can be read at South China Morning Post, 13 Apr 2025: https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3306221/decoding-trumps-tariffs-and-worlds-multipolar-future?display=plus Perhaps what the world is missing in trying to make head or tail of Trump’s tariff … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG, in The Edge Malaysia, 22-29 March 2025. AS WESTERN POWERS go into crisis mode again, and as the global structure within which the nations of the world relate to each other evolves beyond recognition, there is great need for historians to step up. Their voice is needed to help us analyse, … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng , for The Edge Malaysia, 21-28 February, 2025 AS THE TSUNAMI of earth-shaking executive orders bursts out of Trump’s Oval Office, the world tries to stay upright. Our legs seem rubbery though. Now we know what collective vertigo feels like. For now, the shock is greatest for Washington’s closest allies. Learning … Continue reading
By OOI KEE BENG, Editorial for February 2025, Penang Monthly IT IS OFTEN SAID—way too often—that “History belongs to the Victor”. There is of course a lot of truth in the dictum. But it faults for being glib, and for being a discussion stopper. What I find more fruitful to consider is that “History belongs … Continue reading
By Ooi Kee Beng “Picking on the Present” column in The Edge Malaysia, 25-31 January 2025 As geopolitical shifts continue in ways that profoundly affecting East Asia, processes of decolonization in this region—most begun after World War Two, many transmuted by how that war ended, and all captured within the conflicts and standoffs of the … Continue reading
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